By Ben Contreras
THE following is Sulog vice chairman and Save CDO Movement chairman Ralph Abragan’s reply to the statements made by Environment Management Bureau (EMB) regional director Sabdullah Abubacar and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) regional director Ruth Tawantawan. Read on:
“Why do we need to revisit the environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) served?”
This is the rhetorical question posed by Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) regional director Sabdullah Abubacar as he explained that any expert can send a report to EMB and incorporate it in the ECCs.
Because, Mr. Abubacar, it was you yourself who committed to revisit the ECCs and the corresponding Environmental Management Plans (EMPS) of agri-industries during the June 25, 2013 roundtable on watershed sustainability at Grand Caprice, so that climate-change impacts, you said, can be factored into these regulatory instruments. You claimed that these ECCs were issued when climate change impacts were not yet that compelling then to be seriously assessed.
How can you easily forget when you made this commitment before a big crowd and the event organizers, and Sulog documented your presentation. A member of Sulog took a video of you as you made these pronouncements during your closing remarks
Remember when you boasted that any change in these ECCs that relates to climate change impacts can be done even at your level? Why the fleeting memory for such an important commitment done during a very important event?
“The ECC is a planning tool to guide proponents in taking care of the environment.”
Excuse me? Where in the world did Abubacar got that answer? That an ECC is merely a planning tool is not found or supported by any policy or official statement of the DENR or by any other concerned government authority. Such position is purely wishful thinking if not borne out from a wild imagination because any which way you look at it, an ECC is a regulatory tool. And Abubacar, being the head of the regional EMB, should be the first to put this to heart.
As an environmental watchdog, Sulog or any concerned individual for that matter can prove why ECC is a regulatory tool.
Consider the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) System established under Presidential Decree (PD) no. 1586 Statement (EIS) System. It was established under Presidential Decree no. 1586 and provides (specifically Section 4) that no person, partnership or corporation shall undertake or operate in any part such declared environmentally critical project (ECP) and environmentally critical area (ECA) without first securing Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC).
Now, if the law is not regulatory, I don’t know what is.
Take note of DENR Administrative Order no. 96-37, Dec. 02, 1996, Sec. 3.0 EIS/IEE for Covered Projects or Undertakings. If a project is considered an ECP, the proponent shall be required to prepare an EIS. If the project is located within an ECA, the proponent shall be required to submit an IEE, without prejudice to the submission of an EIS as may be further required by the DENR regional executive director.
Obviously, this administrative order was imposed upon project proponents to regulate the issuances of the ECC based on the conduct of thorough or comprehensive impact assessment studies such as the IEE and EIS for the purpose of protecting the environment. It’s clear as daylight that the ECC is a regulatory tool.
All the rules, regulations and orders related to ECC are meant to enforce compliance. Now, how can an ECC be a mere planning tool when the statutes are clearly replete with regulations?
The fact that there are sanctions and stiff penalties for not securing an ECC and for violating the conditionalities stipulated in the ECC document unarguably prove that this is a regulatory tool any which way you look at it. To say that it is merely a planning tool is a cheap ploy to undermine responsibility of the EMB in questionably issuing this very vital document.
Mr. Abubacar, you said it is a planning tool but as they say (pardon the pun) if the thing looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck!
He added that one hectare of forest can absorb 400 tons of carbon emission. “Through carbon sequestration, we will enjoy a healthy environment and reap its economic benefits,” he said.
We just want to remind Mr. Abubacar that the default value of the amount of carbon stored in a hectare of forest per estimate of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) is not more than 300 tons per hectare. Your 400 tons estimate is way too high and could only be achieved if a forest is several hundreds of years old. Now not one of those coal-fired power plants issued ECC have a forest this old, right?
“Before, series of consultations were conducted to the communities involved,” said Tawantawan. However, due to the request of the business sector to hasten the process or to avoid the long bureaucratic processing on their projects, ECCs are released 20 days upon filing.
“After 20 days, if not rejected, it is as good as approved,” said Tawantawan.
Abubacar affirmed the information provided by Tawantawan.
He said: “In the regional office we are given 20 days, if there’s no action, the ECC will be automatically approved.”
The basis of the 20-day requirement is a mere memorandum from Secretary Atienza dated Sept. 2, 2009. How can a mere memorandum yield to a Presidential Decree (PD 1586) and other subsequent administrative orders? May we ask Director Tawantawan and Director Abubacar if they are aware that they are following an illegal instruction (not even an order) which was issued obviously to please the investors and ignore the impacts of projects to the environment. May we ask these DENR officials if they are aware that the memorandum made a travesty out of our Environmental Impact Assessment System in the country.
We at Sulog are in disbelief that the environment is being conveniently sacrificed by the DENR and EMB in order to please a Secretary whose memorandum in fact is an outright violation of the real intent of the EIS law. We are angered by the 20-day prescription to process the ECC as an excuse for not doing due diligence in assessing environmental impacts and not doing their job. We are sad that Abubacar is passing the buck to the DENR Secretary giving us the impression that every step of the way in the processing of the ECC, his office is bypassed by the Central Office? Is that the case, Mr. Abubacar? Because if that is so, you have no business staying in your job.
With the foregoing, our impression at Sulog is that it is already the DENR and EMB facilitating the systematic destruction of the environment.